A mashup of No Man's Sky and Mario was shut down by Nintendo - meet its replacement, DMCA's Sky

Nintendo is not known for its leniency toward fan projects. Earlier this summer it shut down a well-liked Metroid 2 remake, an original Pokemon game called Pokemon Uranium, and a whole lot more that I don't have the space to list here. But something interesting happened when Nintendo came a-knockin' to ASMB Games, a studio which had created a mashup of No Man's Sky and Super Mario Bros. called "No Mario's Sky". To honor the wishes of Nintendo's legal team, ASMB took No Mario's Sky down all right - and immediately replaced it with "DMCA's Sky".

In No Mario's Sky, you played as Mario / Jumpman, searching for Princess Peach in a 2D, procedurally-generated universe full of angry Goombas. Instead of taking warp pipes to new levels, you'd blast off to new planets. Meanwhile, in the reworked DMCA's Sky, you play as Spaceman, searching for Princess Mango, stomping on Moombas. Totally original.

It'll be interesting to see how this shakes out. Whether Nintendo will continue to send cease and desist notifications to ASMB Games or not though, I think the studio got its point across. And hey, the game's not half bad. You can download it for free if you want to give it a try.